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botanical sketches

We are in the home stretch of this year's Fabric8 Contest! Over the past few weeks, our 8 finalists have been busily working on their botanical sketchbook-inspired collections for a shot at signing with Moda Fabrics, and we've been getting to know each of them a bit more in a series of interviews (head here to see them all!). To close out the series, we're catching up with Ceri Staziker (Cerigwen on Spoonflower), the Fabric8 veteran behind the beautiful Edith's Garden entry.

CERI: I’m a home bird — born and brought up in Wales. Even though I love travelling and have lived abroad, I’m happiest here in this beautiful little country with its rugged coastline and mountainous scenery. I live with my husband and ten-year-old daughter in a rural village just outside our capital city of Cardiff. I get the best of both worlds!

This year's Fabric8 Contest is well under way, and our community has chosen the 8 finalists who will have a shot at signing with Moda Fabrics to release a beautiful, botanical collection! As finalists work on completing collections based around their winning design, we're getting to know the top 8 a bit better in a series of interviews with each of our finalists! Today we meet Robin Pickens, the designer behind the beautiful Romance Poppies Botanical Sketchbook entry!

How did you get started in design? Is this your full-time gig?

ROBIN: I had two very creative parents so I grew up with a lot of influence towards art and design. My father was an automotive designer and had a degree in design. My mom was very artistic and creative, and did silk screen printing, painting, and a large variety of crafts, needlework, quilting and sewing. In midwestern suburbs where colonial style reigned, we were the "different" house with classic modern Scandinavian designed furniture. I always wanted to be an artist or designer from a very young age. I got my BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art in graphic design and industrial design. Through a summer internship at a television station I stumbled into broadcast design and learned computer graphics for creating images for the news. I moved to Chicago and worked for the ABC, CBS and FOX stations, then moved to Los Angeles to be the Art Director at KCBS. I then worked for a division of Time Warner where I oversaw the graphics department for Telepictures Productions. Although there were great things about being a manager and executive, I knew in my heart that my true love is being a designer…a creator. So, I went back to what I love. I still do design freelance within the broadcast industry and I like to keep up my skills in animation (After Effects). But I took a new direction for my "chapter two".

One day my mother was visiting me in California and we took a quilting workshop at a shop that has lots of modern fabrics (Quilters Studio in Newbury Park, CA). I loved the fabrics there! Of course I had to buy lots of them, as any good fabric hoarder does. And that started me wondering WHO designs these fabrics and where can I learn this? I already had a lot of experience in design, but in a completely different area and media. I started taking surface design classes at Otis College of Art and Design in LA, and I loved the classes which covered textiles, creating repeats and other surface design categories like tabletop and home decor. I started exhibiting at Surtex and licensing artwork to companies for calendars, greeting cards, rugs, dishware, giftware, and other categories. This work is now my main career and is my personal creative journey. It is often woven into my life as a wife and mom and daughter and friend. A lot of my designs and illustrations are reflections of parts of my daily life.

This year's Fabric8 Contest is well under way, and our community has chosen the 8 finalists who will have a shot at signing with Moda Fabrics to release a beautiful, botanical collection! As finalists work on completing collections based around their winning design, we're getting to know the top 8 a bit better in a series of interviews with each of our finalists! Today we meet Christine Witte, a fixture in our weekly top ten and the creator a lovely Fabric8 entry titled A Field Guide to Wildflowers.

CHRISTINE: Hello! I grew up in Germany, where I recently moved back to after having lived in Canada for almost half my life. I currently live on the beautiful rural outskirts of Frankfurt, surrounded by fields and mountainous forests.

This year's Fabric8 Contest is well under way, and our community has chosen the 8 finalists who will have a shot at signing with Moda Fabrics to release a beautiful, botanical collection! As finalists work on completing collections based around their winning design, we're getting to know the top 8 a bit better in a series of interviews with each of our finalists! Today we meet Lucie Duclos (Snowflower on Spoonflower), the artist behind the oh so lovely Multiflorum entry.

LUCIE: Hi! My name is Lucie, I am an Aquarius, and I live in the coastal town of Port Townsend in the Pacific Northwest, but I am originally from Montreal, Canada. My favorite color right now is aqua (as in Aquarius, just realized that!) but I also love lime green, so I kind of go back and forth.